North Eastern Atlantic

The waters near the Canary Islands are crossed by the Canary Current, which flows south along the northwestern African coast as part of the North Atlantic circulation. The islands offered landfalls and supplies to ships entering the open Atlantic, where winds, currents and reefs affected their passage.

During the fifteenth century, Castilian conquest transformed the Canary Islands and brought severe disruption to Indigenous societies. Subsequent settlement developed agriculture and ports within an expanding Atlantic economy. Sugar and other products linked island production with overseas demand, while outward voyages increasingly used the archipelago's position and supplies. The wider Macaronesian world helped connect experiments in colonization, plantation labor, and oceanic commerce. European naval rivalry later added further risks to passing ships. These waters' historical setting therefore combines environmental advantage with unequal political transformation, showing how island ports could support far-reaching routes while the communities around them experienced changes in landholding, labor, religion, and the distribution of commercial benefits.